Abstract
Despite the fact that for many years religion was considered a matter of private interest, the fact is that it never completely left the public space. Religion was and still is a public issue in many aspects, but notably because usually it is exercised in the public space even when this takes place through hidden forms of religious practice. Moreover, during the last years, debates about religion in the public space have come to the forefront on various occasions, but primarily regarding the place of Islam in the West (construction of mosques, wearing the headscarf, public prayers, etc.). As a consequence, this book deals with a timely issue discussed by many groups of people in the academia and beyond (sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, politicians, journalists, etc.). The authors of the book are Lily Kong, Professor of Social Sciences and Provost at the Singapore Management University, and Orlando Woods, researcher at Asia Strategies, also in Singapore.
The book consists of six chapters. The first one serves as an introduction and discusses issues like religious competition and space in pluralistic societies; negotiations of religious and secular claims over space; and the changing roles of religion over time. The second chapter deals with the various types of religious claims on public space, from competition to conflict and violence and also examines the possible ir-resolution of conflicts over religious spaces. In the third chapter the place of religion and its competition with the secular forces is examined, while in the fourth the authors discuss the influence of globalization on the religious competition and conflict over space. Chapter 5 focuses on social resilience and religion while the final one discusses the re-conceptualization of religion and space in a globalized world by way of conclusion.
In the first chapter the authors state that one of the book’s aims is to develop an understanding and appreciation of how religiously motivated competition – which could result in conflict and violence – intersects with ‘space’ (p. 2). They also argue that space is a viable but overlooked analytical lens that can be used to classify and understand the process and outcomes of religious competition, conflict and violence and they highlight its critical analytical lens that should not be neglected (pp. 2–3). For their analysis the authors are critically based on Mircea Eliade’s and Henri Lefebvre’s theories, because, as they argue, they enable an understanding of how religious and secular claims to space are, and have been of course, negotiated in the postwar period of modernity. To that they add the notions of ownership and authority which are fully related with the claim over public space.
Since it is not easy to critically comment on every chapter of the book I will draw my focus to two crucial issues which are discussed in Chapters 3 and 4: (1) religion in secular spaces and (2) the role of globalization. Religion in secular spaces is a very important topic, especially after the rise of Islam in Western societies through the numerous waves of immigration in the past decades. As the authors argue, it is not possible to classify all spaces as completely and exclusively secular or religious, and for that purpose they propose the term quasi-secular spaces. Such spaces are affiliated to some religious group but perform primarily secular functions like education or medical services or dispensing social support services and belong in this grey area between the religious and the secular space (p. 77). The two examples of the UK and France regarding the educational model they follow (accommodation in the UK and deterrence in France) is quite useful in the discussion regarding the construction of identities (a British Muslim on the one hand and two different, French and Muslim, on the other) but also on the degree and obstacles of incorporation of Muslims in Western societies, a conflictual contemporary issue. In general this chapter deals with a crucial parameter of the current debates on the presence of religion and the use of public space. Apart from the educational system, additional issues of free expression, media and arts spaces are discussed (e.g. blasphemy), while political spaces and the appropriation of public space from religious groups constitute the core of such debates.
The second topic which I found important is the role of globalization in religious conflicts and competition. In this chapter the authors discuss four aspects of this influence based on the work of Appadurai. These are ‘ethnoscapes’, meaning the changes in religious competition arising out of movements of people across national boundaries; ‘technoscapes’, which deals with the technological developments and their impact on traditional religious practices; ‘finascapes’, which means the way the architecture of the modern financial system has remodelled existing forms of religious competition and conflict; and finally ‘mediascapes’ and ‘ideoscapes’, which means how instant flows of images and narratives of events in the world have crystallized a transnational religious identity and effectively contributed to the globalization of local episodes of religious competition and conflicts (pp. 126–127). The process of globalization has facilitated a change in the structure and operations of religious groups, as the authors argue. This is particularly true for Christian groups which in recent decades have fragmented into smaller more independent churches and denominations that are spiritually and organizationally different from their larger counterparts. Such fragmentation is in part driven by the desire to better leverage the processes of globalization that can lead to cross-border religious dissemination and growth.
In the conclusion the two authors argue that, as it has been stated in this volume, space is not only a locus of religious activity, but it is also a tool used by religious groups to engage society, to exert authority and to reinforce or subvert a dominant order, regime or discourse. It is for this reason that space is such an important analytical lens that can help reveal and illuminate the inherently complex interrelationships between religious groups, the state and society (p. 163). In their view, to understand religious competition, conflict and violence requires that attention be paid to the spaces that are both medium and outcome of such relations.
Overall this volume offers a well-established approach to a very crucial subject not only for members of the academia but for everyone interested in understanding social reality. Conflicts over public space is not at all a new social and political phenomenon, because every religion, especially during its time of expansion, wanted to dominate the public space and eliminate or marginalize other existing religious communities. However, the book manages to discuss all the major aspects of this topic using a variety of sources, including the media and with a large number of examples from around the world described in separate boxes in every chapter. Although for someone this might be an unnecessary tool, I think that this presentation strategy makes the book a useful tool for all researchers and students in the fields of sociology of religion, urban sociology, geography, anthropology, etc., because through these examples a more vivid illustration of the book’s argumentation is achieved. The authors avoid the use of complex terms and vague analyses and this is an advantage of the book because it provides an insightful analysis to this highly debated issue.